For a change, younger acts rule Grammys

The Grammy Awards this evening will be kids' night -- at least by the staid standards of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

The Grammy Awards this evening will be kids' night -- at least by the staid standards of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

In past years, the Grammys have mixed it up -- with veteran acts facing off against newcomers for the big prizes or vintage stars mingling with up-and-comers in cross-generational performances.

Who could forget the Jonas Brothers trying to get funky (or something like that) with Stevie Wonder on the telecast last year?

As with that fiasco, the old-timers usually get the better of the new faces.

The top category -- album of the year -- underscores the point.

In just the past decade, the surprise winners have included Herbie Hancock for River: The Joni Letters in 2008, Ray Charles for Genius Loves Company in 2005 and Steely Dan for Two Against Nature in 2001.

All won for the wrong albums; they should have been recognized decades sooner.

Instead, they beat younger, more worthy competition with mediocre releases. When Hancock triumphed over the favored Kanye West and Amy Winehouse, awards presenter Quincy Jones said it all: "Unbelievable!"

There's no chance of a venerable insider usurping the pop upstarts this year, though, because the major categories are dominated by relatively young artists either just beginning their careers or in their commercial prime.

Two of the album-of-the-year nominees (Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift) are on their first or second albums, and the remaining three (Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas and the Dave Matthews Band) are coming off big commercial successes.

That these artists were nominated for the big prize in the same year that Bob Dylan and U2 released acclaimed but commercially flat albums speaks volumes about the shifting mindset of the music-industry professionals in the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences who vote on the awards.

Black Eyed Peas rapper-songwriter-producer will.i.am is no Dylan as a creative talent, but the two mega singles he oversaw in 2009, I Got a Feeling and Boom Boom Pow, sold more than 9 million digital downloads. Dylan can't compete with those numbers, but in past years he might've been nominated simply because he happens to be Bob Dylan. Not so in 2010.

This year's nominees suggest there's more at work here than "artistic excellence," which is what the academy claims to personify. For decades, the Grammys have been as much a TV show as a music-industry fete, and ratings certainly play a role in how the telecast is put together.

Like the music industry itself, the numbers for the Grammys telecast have been slumping. Last year's program drew 19 million viewers, a 10 percent increase from the previous year, but still way down overall -- the Grammys attracted 30 million or more viewers until 1994, and have been struggling to reach 20 million the past four years.

From the coveted 18-to-49 demographic, the Grammys drew 7.4 percent last year -- a 14 percent boost from 2008 but still the third-lowest performance since 1992.

So it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that the Grammys are loading up on young performers this year to attract the viewers the academy needs to put on a viable TV show. All five best-album nominees are scheduled to rock the Staples Center in Los Angeles during the broadcast, and the hope is that millions of young viewers will tune in to watch Fergie strut, Lady Gaga warble and Dave Matthews jam.

And yet the number of nominations accorded Beyonce (10) and Swift (eight) makes it sound as if the Grammys are taking this let's-get-hip impulse too far. Ratings and behind-the-scenes political power plays are the only reasons to fathom how Beyonce's I Am . . . Sasha Fierce got the nod ahead of superior albums by Maxwell (BLACKsummers'night) and West (808s & Heartbreak) in the best-album category.

The academy might have had its fill of West's boorish awards-show behavior, but he's still making great music, and 808s is one of those rare albums -- deeply personal, artistically daring and commercially successful -- that doesn't come around that often.

As for Swift, she's still pretty callow as a songwriter -- the country-pop answer to Avril Lavigne or Nick Jonas. I don't doubt that she has a solid career ahead of her, but the Grammy avalanche is too much too soon.

On the other hand, be careful what you wish for. Do we really want the Grammys to return to the days of handing out career awards to veteran performers while ignoring contemporary acts?

This year's nominations contained far fewer examples of such crusty nostalgia, but a few doozies still slipped past.

Even Hall & Oates have to be wondering how they got nominated for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals for a live rendition of their 1976 hit Sara Smile.

Can the academy be serious when it tells us there weren't five better vocal performances in 2009 than the quaint remake? As Quincy Jones would say, "Unbelievable!"

• The 52nd annual Grammy Awards will air at 8 tonight on CBS, including WBNS-TV (Channel 10).